The background description provided here is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
A substrate processing system may be used to perform deposition, etching and/or other treatment of substrates such as semiconductor wafers. During processing, a substrate is arranged on a substrate support in a processing chamber of the substrate processing system. During etching or deposition, gas mixtures including one or more etch gases or gas precursors, respectively, are introduced into the processing chamber and plasma may be struck to activate chemical reactions.
The substrate processing system may include a plurality of substrate processing tools arranged within a fabrication room. Each of the substrate processing tools may include a plurality of process modules. Typically, a substrate processing tool includes up to 6 process modules.
Referring now to FIG. 1, a top-down view of an example substrate processing tool 100 is shown. The substrate processing tool 100 includes a plurality of process modules 104. For example only, each of the process modules 104 may be configured to perform one or more respective processes on a substrate. Substrates to be processed are loaded into the substrate process tool 100 via ports of a loading station of an equipment front end module (EFEM) 108 and then transferred into one or more of the process modules 104. For example, a substrate may be loaded into each of the process modules 104 in succession. Referring now to FIG. 2, an example arrangement 200 of a fabrication room 204 including plurality of substrate processing tools 208 is shown.